“We can figure this out,” said Ana Sofía.
“I guess,” said Doreen. But all the hop and fuzz had gone out of her.
Tippy-Toe scampered up to her shoulder, put a tiny cold paw on her cheek, and sniffed. It was the sort of sniff that implied, Don’t worry, I have a plan.
TIPPY-TOE
One of the first things my mother taught me as a pup was how to hop from one tree to the next. But now that I was planning to hop from one city to the next…well, I had to wonder whether I’d twitched a little too far left and come down with noggin rot. My dear fuzzed mother wasn’t pushing me into this leap. But Doreen needed a confab with her own squeaks, and she couldn’t just hop to the burrow a few blocks down and have a chitter. Her squeaks were in New York City, and Doreen couldn’t call them until she had their numbers.
She didn’t ask me to go. She didn’t need to. When I see a problem, I take care of it.
The journey took the better part of a day, even piggybacking on oil-oozing and smoke-coughing buses. Making it to New York City was only the first part of the problem. Now, how to find these Avengers? At the bus depot, I put my nose in the air and sniffed. Even with its machine and human stink, I could smell a huge cluster of trees to the north. And where there are lots of trees, there are squirrels. And where there are squirrels, there is information.
I staked out an unoccupied tree in the corner of the park. A male gray scrabbled up the trunk to a branch just below me. Manners said to wait for the local to acknowledge me first, but I was in a hurry.
“This some kinda leaf masquerade, squeak?” I asked, trying not to sound impatient.
There was a rustling, and the gray scampered up to my branch, perching a respectful distance away.
“Huh?” the gray noised. “Clear the chitter-fog and I’ll say straight, duchess.”
“Looks like you’re pretending to be branchspawn, all quiet and skulky, I mean,” I said. “You tryin’ to hide?”
“Naw,” he said. “I mean, you seen me, right? So I couldn’t ’a been hiding.”
“Right,” I said.
“So…yeah,” he said, twitching his tail all shy-like. It felt like he was going to ask me out on a date. “How you doin’?”
“Peaches and nuts, Amster cat. How you doin’?”
“That’s some slick chitter, squeak,” he said. “You Jersey?”
“Shucked it on the first, sly,” I said. “You got a name, or should I just keep callin’ you Cat?”
“Respect, Jersey, respect,” he said. “You can call me Frizz.”
“That tuft grow on you like fuzz or dropped puptime by your mother?”92
“Full name Frizzwicket Lieberman, but Mom only used the whole bit when I was in trouble.”
“Respect for respect then, Frizz. For you and your mother. But how is it you lead with that? You know me? What chitter you heard?”
“Just what comes on the chitter-train, squeak. Jersey squirrels puttin’ the groundies in their place, right? Saving babies? Caging the sharp-toothed garbage? That scamper true, Jersey?”
“All but the groundies, Frizz. Dogs dealt with, babies saved. But the groundies, squeak? They’re mates. Partners, shuck? We’re working together now.”
“Nuts,” he said. “They agree to that? No threat?”
“No threat,” I said. “Common interest.”
“More respect to top the hoard, then,” he said. “You on the chew in the city, or breaking?”
“On the chew,” I said. “Gotta find the Avengers peeps. The humans.”
“Their nest is no hidden hoard to me, natch,” he said.
“I figured,” I said. “Point me the way for an acorn?”
“No charge, cousin,” Frizz said. “I’ll take you there myself.”
I followed him through the park, which had more trees than I’d seen, more than in my dreams of our ancestral forest. Then he stopped in a tree across the street from a mansion on Fifth Avenue that hogged up an entire city block. It smelled of stone, steel, and electricity, which meant the humans had taken great effort to make it secure.
“You been in, Frizz?” I asked.
His eyes widened. “No, squeak. I mean, don’t know how you do it in Jersey, but we stay outta human nests.”
“Right, right,” I said. “We do, too. But in this case, I’m doing a favor, see? For a human.”
“No rot? Must be a pretty special human.”
“She is,” I said, scanning the building for an opening. “You should meet her.”
“You talk? She chitter?”
“That’s right,” I said. “She understands. So mostly I chitter, she nods.”
“That is peaches and nuts,” he said. “Bring her next time you come, huh?”
“Will do,” I said. The building was well protected with cameras, sonic fences, and automated energy weapons, but squirrels have ways of getting inside things. “Wish me luck, Frizz,” I said, and leaped into action.
TEXT MESSAGES
SQUIRREL GIRL
Hey hi is this the famous super hero known as Black Widow?93 I need some help
BLACK WIDOW
WILN
SQUIRREL GIRL
Ooh do Avengers speak in code that makes so much sense bc anyone could be spying.94 So supersecret spy help needed here. Any tips on stopping an evil mastermind from releasing terrible gaseous vengeance?
BLACK WIDOW
Parker stop texting me. Ur roommate’s farts do not qualify him as a super villain
SQUIRREL GIRL
LOL not Parker. Or is Parker more code? I’m Squirrel Girl
BLACK WIDOW
How did you get this number
SQUIRREL GIRL
From a squirrel
Yeah so what would you do if a talking zucchini in a hot-air balloon threatened to poison the neighborhood
BLACK WIDOW
Stark if this is you I’d start wearing the armor to the bathroom
SQUIRREL GIRL
???
BLACK WIDOW
BECAUSE NOWHERE WILL BE SAFE
SQUIRREL GIRL
Nowhere is safe? I was planning to stake out the gas stations but if nowhere is safe then maybe you’re saying the danger isn’t in one place but moving around?
BLACK WIDOW
Enough Stark one word to Pepper from me and u r in the doghouse
SQUIRREL GIRL
Doghouse? Um I’m not sure I totally get your code but I’ll look into it
BLACK WIDOW
I’m blocking you Stark or Parker or whoever this is. U r probably the one who ate my yogurt too even though it was clearly labeled and on my fridge shelf. Mess with BWs yogurt and you get STUNG
SQUIRREL GIRL
I think you’re kidding? But thanks for the supersecret advice. I assumed gas meant gas station but you’re right nowhere is safe from this mysterious super villain. And I’ll be vigilant and keep an eye on the dogs. K thx BW!
[text not received; user blocked]
TIPPY-TOE
Breaking into the Avengers Mansion, evading their numerous and ridiculous security measures, and accessing a contact list on a cell phone took more energy than I anticipated. I was curled up in the tree house in Doreen’s yard with no more than an hour of sleep in me, when…
“Tippy. Tippy!”
Even half-asleep, I recognized the voice. It was Davey Porkpun, so called because of the jokes he tells. Bad jokes, mostly about pigs, bacon, and ham. I was not in the mood for jokes. I was in the mood for peace and quiet. I pretended to remain asleep, but when I felt the heat of his paw above my shoulder, I knew he was about to poke me. My eyes snapped open and I grabbed hold of his wrist just before he made contact. He startled.
“This had better be good,” I said, releasing his wrist.
“It is,” he breathed.
“Like buttered peanuts good,” I said, flexing my tail.
“Green husks and monkey biscuits, not that good! Maybe as good as bacon on—”
“No jo
kes,” I added quickly.
“Right,” he said, but his eyes darted up and to the left in that way they do when he’s trying to come up with a joke he thinks I haven’t heard before.
“Focus, Davey,” I snapped. “Why the branch stampede? What’s up?”
His eyes popped back to mine. “It’s the sharp garbage—er, the dogs,” he said. “There’s a good piece of rot dropping. They’re snapping and growling something fierce.”
Doreen had asked me and the squirrels to keep an eye on the dogs. The ones that, despite everything dogs had ever done to squirrels, we had actually helped.
“Something sour in the pile,” I said. “I’ll sniff it myself. Let’s scamper.”
To his credit, Davey kept up with me as I raced through the neighborhood. I could hear the dogs before I saw them, crooning and snarling like their paws were caught in a trap. The sound was nasty enough to make my fur stand up along my spine. Then I saw the body. One of my people, a tree squirrel, lying limp just beyond the borders of the bug-free lot. Tree squirrels don’t just lie still. When we don’t move, something is seriously wrong.
“That’s Speedo!” said Davey.
Speedo Strutfuzz let out a weak cough, and I sprinted to his side, eyeing the bite marks marring his fur.
“Which sharp piece of garbage did this?” I hissed.
“Black stripe,” Speedo muttered. I tensed to spring, ready to pay the animal back in kind, but Speedo put his paw on mine. “Naw, Tippy. Wasn’t nasty. There was a…nail or something…on his back. He was in pain. I tried to…”
“Punish he to whom the teeth belong,” I growled. “That is the law. If the black-striped garbage has the teeth that hurt you, he will be punished.”
“Peaches, Tip,” Speedo said, taking labored breaths, “but this pup…may be just the tooth of a greater monster.”
Speedo’s eyes fluttered closed, and though his chest still rose and fell with breaths, my heart twinged.
Davey carefully parted Speedo’s fur to examine his injuries. “He got a branch-snap in the rib, but the leaks are gummed over already.”
“Stay with him,” I said.
I scaled a tree and looked down. The dogs had gone crazy, whimpering and growling, snapping and biting at anything and everything, including themselves. Except the dark mound the groundies had used as their community toilet. Even in their madness, it appeared the dogs had enough sense not to eat that. But all the other piles of refuse had been torn up. My tail twitched. If I fell into that mayhem, I would not survive.
The morning sun was cresting the buildings. The sunlight glinted against small pieces of metal in the dogs’ backs, like giant robot bees had stung the beasts and left their stingers behind.
There was a yelp as one of the dogs rammed its head into the red concrete wall of the abandoned restaurant. The animal staggered and shook its head, but then snarled and used its head again to ram the wall.
Before the creature could ram the wall once more, I leaped from the tree and onto its back. I have ridden on dogs before, but always to distract them from hurting one of my clan. I told myself that this was still the case, because crazy dogs are bad news for squirrels. But the truth was, I could tell the dog was suffering. And I actually cared. About a dog. I sighed. Doreen had done this to me.
The dog bucked. My hind paws grasped handfuls of the dog’s fur, and I stayed right where I was. Close up, the metal thing on its back looked like a large silver tick, six metallic legs digging into the flesh of the animal. Sparking arcs of electricity popped off of the tiny machine, and my mount twitched and jerked with each one.
I grabbed the tick and pulled. The dog howled. The spark of electricity fizzled through me, my hairs standing straight up. I’ve chewed through live electrical wire. I could take it. But my body’s involuntary jerk that came with the zap still sent me flying. The tick came with me.
I landed hard on an open spot of asphalt, the impact noodling my noggin. I struggled to my feet just in time to be struck by something that sent me flying again. Canine teeth nicked my tail, and then I landed on what felt like mud. The smell of it sharpened me up, and I almost gagged when I realized I had come down on the potty pile. The dogs were leaving me alone. But still, gross.
I shuddered, leaping from the pile, to the fence, and up to the neighboring tree faster than I realized I could move.
“Whoa,” Davey said. A handful of other squirrels had arrived during my dog and potty show and together had managed to pull Speedo up into the safe branches. “That was amazing.”
“Not my first dog ride,” I said, a little dazed. I was still gripping the metal device. It was hot in my paw.
“Naw, Tip. That dog you helped? It saved you,” Speedo said, awake now and propped up against the trunk.
“Bug nuts,” I said. “Chitter straight, Speedo.” I looked back to where the animal now lay, collapsed in an exhausted heap while his brothers and sisters continued to pace, twitch, and howl.
“Clear chitter, squeak. When you tumbled, the other dogs were on straight scamper for your tail. But black stripe batted you away from them,” Davey said.
“Hoarding his nuts, maybe,” I said. “Wanted me first.”
“Maybe,” Speedo said, wincing as he sat a little straighter. “But I saw different. It seemed super peached to have that metal thing off its back. Grateful to you.”
“It stinks like a summertime ham hoard,” said Davey, sniffing me over.
“Sorry,” I said. “I landed in the potty mound.”
“No,” Davey said. “I mean, yes, you do stink. But you smell like groundie droppings. That metal thing smells like…I don’t know. Something else.”
I took a sniff of the metal thing. Through the stink of my own fur, I could still tell Davey was right. The electric bug was like a shell with a rotten nut inside. It reminded me of something, but I couldn’t quite put a claw on it.
“Chitter back to that mass migration of beetles last fall? When Sluggo ate one of the bugs?” Davey said. “Squeak’s farts smelled like what’s inside that thing.”
“That beetle stampede was no migration,” I said. I knew what he meant. Last spring an exterminator had puffed a house full of gas to rid it of bedbugs. “Those bugs were on the flee from fumigation….Oh!”
“What’s a fumigation-o?”
“Poison gas, meant to kill things,” I said. “Bury this, fast.” I handed the thing to Davey Porkpun.
“On it like bristles on a hog,” said Davey, leaping to the ground.
“I’m going to tell Squirrel Girl about this,” I told the rest of the squeaks. “Gather our best riders. I think we’re about to have a rodeo.”
SQUIRREL GIRL
Squirrel Girl sat on the flat roof of the Throat Rope Nest. Or the Garden State Institute for Business Management, which is what she discovered it was actually called while climbing up the front. She looked for the nice man in the throat rope through the windows to say hi again, but the building was dark. People didn’t do much instituting for business management on Saturdays.
She sighed. She had told her mom she was going to study with Ana Sofía. This crisis wasn’t specifically baby-related, but she couldn’t bear it if her parents had said no. Still, she was surprised she’d been able to get out of the house before breaking down and confessing everything. Now she just felt yucky about the lie.
She checked her phone. 11:48 a.m. The talking zucchini said Saturday at “high noon.” It sounded like a cowboy thing. She hadn’t seen a cowboy since California, and that had been on Halloween, so it probably didn’t count. Maybe “high noon” was a Super Villain clue. Should she be on the lookout for robot cowboys, instead of robot zucchinis? Did “high noon” mean twelve o’clock, or higher than twelve o’clock? She sighed. It was a weird thing to say, even for a talking squash.
ANA SOFÍA
See anything yet?
DOREEN
When is it high noon
ANA SOFÍA
About ten min
&n
bsp; DOREEN
But that’s regular noon
ANA SOFÍA
High noon is the same thing but with cowboys
DOREEN
I know right? Do you think there will be robot cowboys riding little robot bulls
ANA SOFÍA
Maybe you are the cowboy in this scenario
DOREEN
Cowgirl
ANA SOFÍA
Cow squirrel
Squirrel Girl giggled, and then she heard a squeak. In the distance, a gray speck was leaping from treetop to treetop. She caught sight of pink ribbon.
Squirrel Girl jumped off the building, catching the top of a light across the street, and swung into a large oak.
The two friends met on the black-shingled roof of a house.
“Ch…chk!” It was rare to see Tippy-Toe out of breath, and it made her harder to understand.
“The what? The fur-teeth?”
Tippy held up a paw. “Chk chuk CHIK!”
“Poison dogs? What…wait—just tell me on the way! Let’s go!”
Tippy-Toe rode on Squirrel Girl’s shoulder. As girl and squirrel scampered from treetops to buildings, Tippy-Toe recounted the story of the dog with the metal tick, and how it smelled of poison gas.
The last time Squirrel Girl had been at the Burger-N-Bean Bowl, it had been bouncy with happy dogs, chasing one another’s tails and sharing dog food. Now the lot was empty, except for a single black-and-white dog with its paw on Speedo Strutfuzz.
“Hey!” Squirrel Girl shouted, bounding toward the dog. Speedo held up a paw.